Pathology and prognosis of mucinous gastric carcinoma

Abstract

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Clinicopathologic characteristics of mucinous gastric carcinoma (MGC) are unclear, and whether surgical results of MGC are unfavorable is controversial. Pathology and prognosis of patients with MGC were studied using multivariate analysis. METHODS: The study included 17 patients with MGC and 614 with nonmucinous gastric carcinoma (NGC). The tumor was defined as MGC when more than one half of tumor area had mucin pools. Patients were evaluated with regard to age, sex, tumor location, size, gross type, depth of wall invasion, lymph node metastasis, lymphatic and vascular permeations, stage of disease, and operative curability. RESULTS: MGC tumors, when compared with NGC tumors, were featured by the large size (9.0 vs. 5.2 cm), grossly infiltrative type (76 vs. 30%), T2 or more invasion (100 vs 53%), positive lymph node metastasis (88 vs. 32%), lymphatic permeation (94 vs. 55%), vascular permeation (47 vs. 25%), and stages III and IV (88 vs. 32%). On a multivariate analysis, mucinous histologic type was not an independent prognostic factor. Although 5-year survival rate for all MGC patients was lower than that for all NGC patients, the survival rate was not different between the MGC and NGC patients when compared in the same category of tumor size, depth of wall invasion, lymph node metastasis, and stage. CONCLUSIONS: MGC is rare and detected mostly in an advanced stage. Mucinous histologic type itself is not a prognostic significance in patients with gastric carcinoma, and the biologic behavior of MGC is similar to that of ordinary advanced gastric carcinoma.